Kind Love

Kind Love

In this Growers Spotlight, Hunter Wilson of Growers Network catches up with Idan Spitz of Kind Love about their Colorado cultivation.

In this Growers Spotlight, Hunter Wilson of Growers Network catches up with Idan Spitz of Kind Love about their Colorado cultivation.

Tell us about the space you’re using to grow.

We’re an all-indoors hydro grow, measuring around 8,000 square feet currently. We grow indoors because that’s the only way that you’ll get the best quality cannabis. You can grow outdoors and get some acceptable cannabis, but the best stuff can only come when you are able to control every variable. We’re also currently in the process of expanding. A new facility is under construction which should give us a lot of options for growing. The Kind Love store is in Denver on Alameda Avenue, but the grow itself is northeast of Denver.

Tell me about the plants you’re growing.

We carry over six dozen strains. Some are proprietary strains that we grow to flower, and the others are sold commercially as clones. Over 30 strains are produced to be sold as clones, and we’re one of the bigger clone stores in Denver, as we can crank out about 10,000 per month right now. We may soon expand to 30,000 clones a month with the new facility.

What’s the difference between propagation for resale and propagation for flowering?

We maintain two separate systems for cloning and flowering. Plants we intend to grow to all the way to flowering are put into an aeroponic system. Aeroponically grown plants are healthier and stronger but take longer and require more attention. The clones we grow for resale are placed into jiffy cubes with a nutrient medium, allowing them to grow quickly and relatively easily.

Tell me about your growing equipment.

Environmental Control: We use Stulz HVAC units to control both temperature and RH. We manually control light levels by changing ballast wattages, and we’re looking to add a fertigation system and automation for the entire grow.

Lights: We’re currently in the process of changing our lights. Right now we’re using 1000W single-ended HPS lights. We’re switching to double-ended HPS lights and LEDs. DE HPS has a high PPFD output and a more favorable grow spectrum than single-ended, and LED lights give you the ability to control the spectrum relatively precisely, which is great for the photoreceptor enzymes that modify gene expression in plants.

Media and Nutrients: Veg and flowering grow in coco coir. We have a comprehensive protocol for nutrients depending on the strain and the current part of the cycle the plant is in. While our mix is proprietary, we do use New Millennium Nutrients and Botanicare.

What’s your approach to pest management?

We’re restricted heavily on what pesticides we can use, and we can only apply a few things. Therefore, our number one approach is to keep everything away that might infect the plants. Thus, we have a very stringent cleanliness policy. Employees who work with the plants are required to take showers in the morning and put on scrubs and shoes that have never left the facility. Visitors are not allowed in the grow rooms and must wear booties at all times in the grow space.

The main pests we deal with are typical to Colorado and include: spider mites, grubs, root aphids, thrips, mealybugs and powdery mildew. Should we ever encounter any of these pests, we have a scorched-earth policy. The infected plant is immediately removed and other plants it may have come into contact are closely inspected. We sanitize the room from top to bottom after each grow goes through.